To find out how adequate the educational facilities in the later Middle Ages and if they met the needs of the society of the time it is necessary to chart the evolution of these facilities and the type of scholar that they produced. It will also be necessary to look at the structure of society and the educational requirements of the various levels that made up this structure. In conclusion it will be noted where these requirements were met and the differing ways that this was achieved.
There is little evidence of the levels of general literacy prior to the 10th century although existing manuscripts would lead to the acceptance of some ability to read and write. However this should not be taken as an indication of these abilities in the monasteries of the time as purely copying originals with no understanding of their contents could have created many of these manuscripts.
However the church did have a requirement for learning, especially in Latin, and this gave rise to formation of the Cathedral Schools. Many of these schools had choirs as this was thought to assist in the enunciation of the Latin. Certainly with the church courts taking a role as arbiter in ecclesiastical court disputes there was an increasing need for literate clerics. However at the same time it is thought that nearly half of the ecclesiastical benefices could have been filled with clerics who were unable to read or write.
By the 12th century many major nobles, for example kings and princes, could read but their educational requirement was for more practical matters such as harping, dancing, hunting, feats of arms, and courtly statecraft. There is evidence that Richard II had books in Latin and French and that Edward III could read and write, but this may have been just the ability to write his signature, as writing may not have been a requirement to perform the higher functions of governance. By 1399 the Earl of Lancaster and both Henry IV and V were able to read and write both in English and Latin but it is Henry VI who can be considered as the first truly literate King with reading and writing abilities in English, French and Latin. It was he who founded Eton as the first Public School.
The Public Schools filled a need for the landed nobles. It was assumed that the first born would inherit due to the general acceptance of primogeniture from the 12th century onwards and that the abilities for this were of a more militaristic nature but this left a problem with the requirements of the 2nd or 3rd and later born children. The first born would need rudimentary literacy to function but the siblings needed a career and therefore an education. Whilst it is true that the church was an option for these siblings the trend would appear to be towards Lay and University education, with a continuation to the Inns of Court and a legal career.
Oxford was the first true University and grew to consist of a collection of colleges. The main teaching was the seven liberal arts and biased towards the more philosophic subjects. Indeed there began to be a separation between University and Church teachings mainly due to the increased questioning of Church doctrine by the colleges and resulted in a number of disagreements between both with the church eventually banning several notable published University works as heretical. It is possible that the Universities were not the only logical progression from the Public schools, as noted above, as there are extant records of mature university students from these earlier times. This might well be seen as a result of the growing requirement for higher education in society in general.
The increase in legal cases of common law caused an increase in the requirement for educated and literate lawyers and clerics to perform work in the chancery courts. The Inns of Court provided this for common law cases and it was generally a requirement for University level education prior to entry to these establishments. However it should be noted that by the 15th century there were still only about 250 people able to read and write in the Law Courts. The mental discipline required for Latin as a spoken, read and written language for use in mediaeval administration would lead to the supposition that scholars would have been drawn from the Choristers of the Cathedral schools, the Private sector or the Universities.
The lay community was slower to take up education in general perhaps due to the manual nature of the work requirements and the influence of the burgeoning Guild and apprentice structure in the urban centres and quite possibly an inherent distrust of educated people. However the need arose for positions such as wage clerks, stock control and more general positions requiring literacy in the merchant classes and this need was met by the public schools, either endowed or free schools, and to a lesser extend by Scriveners individually paid to teach.
It should be noted that Oxford University was among the forefront in using business studies to meet this business requirement but in general there was no quality control for the education process or its' ability to meet the society requirements. It is difficult to ascertain the level of education achieved with many of the teaching positions in the public and endowed schools filled by secular clergy who were paid for holding these positions. Endowment of funds to finance a school, or occasionally the pupils, was not necessarily a reflection on the ability of the school to perform and may be merely an indication of the financial ability of the endower.
During the 14th century the arrival of married clerics to positions of teaching, the influence of the Universities moving towards a more business orientated syllabus and possibly the continuing fractionalisation of Church doctrine and the University philosophic caused a wider split between clerical and lay teaching practice. Edward III, on his 50th birthday, decreed that vernacular English would be the language of state over French; the language used since the Norman Invasion in 1066.
The effect of this was dramatic on the various functions of the ecclesiastical, state and lay communities. For example the Exchequer continued to use Latin for accounting, the Chancery Latin and French in Law, and the Privy Seal used English and legal writs for common law cases progressed from being written in Latin to French and then English. By the 15th Century business would seem to have been conducted initially in the vernacular and subsequently sealed in written Latin.
This caused a further subdivision of the scholastic process. The progression of Song/Choral schools to Grammar schools; literally the grammar of language; logic and finally theology. The uptake on public schools with either the school itself endowed or death will bequests for "poor people" to have education at these establishments whilst the majority of these students were being charged a fee based education. Formation of Chantry schools with a priest in charge of the proceedings over a secular scholastic community of pupils. These may well show a trend towards the educational facilities changing to meet the requirements of the society that they were serving.
The increase of recreational reading and writing may well be an indication of the increase in lay literacy. Certainly ecclesiastical primers and "Books of Hours" would show a rise in the abilities of the lay community to read for religious reasons and there are extant examples of romances and literary works that are purely for leisure. In the case of leisure reading the expense of the production of the "Books of Hours" and the romances would put them once again in the realms of the upper echelons of society. This would lead to the supposition that a very small percentage of the population would have had the education to take advantages of this and even less would also have had the abilities to write as well.
However towards the end of the 14th century the creation of Guildhall libraries with their "chained libraries" of books would point to the more general acceptance of education and literacy as a part of the society of the time. The administrative and social functioning of society had created a need for literati that was beginning to be filled by the educational processes of the various schools.
In conclusion it is clear that there was an established order of schools during the period and that they were producing educated scholars and clerics that fulfilled certain society requirements. However the putative educational system was still very privileged; largely based on ecclesiastical teachings, the ability to pay for the learning and available to a very small percentage of society; and unable to meet the needs of the more general society populace. Until the effects of the change of "official" language and the effects of the reformation after the later mediaeval period it is difficult to conclude that the late mediaeval educational system was adequate to the needs that were being asked by society.
Bibliography
| England in the Later Middle Ages | Keen |
| A History of the Medieval Church (590-1500) | Margaret Deanesly |
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© David Debono October 2001
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